


Drive

by LiraelClayr007



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, The Bentley - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 21:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19071109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiraelClayr007/pseuds/LiraelClayr007
Summary: Back at the car, Aziraphale’s face lights up with sudden inspiration. “Do you think I could, ah, drive?”Crowley’s face remains unreadable. The sunglasses help with this, of course, but he’s become formidable at schooling his features over the millenia. “Drive?” he repeats. “The Bentley?”“You always make it look like so much fun. And it’s been such a lovely day…”





	Drive

“Alright then,” Crowley says, “you were right about the picnic.”

Aziraphale smiles at the bright blue sky, the way the leaves rustle in the trees, the ducks begging in the nearby pond. “Quite nice, isn’t it. Not how I want to eat every day, mind, but it’s good for a change.”

“And the wine was good.”

“I picked it up in Italy...oh, a few years back.”

They pack up the leavings of their lunch, looking more like choreographed dancers than picnickers.

Actually, they look like an angel and a demon who have spent six thousand years dancing around each other, each trying to work the other out. Maybe it  _ is _ choreography.

Since the not end of the world they’ve fallen into a bit of a pattern: lunch dates (though neither of them dares call what they’re doing “dating”), evenings in Aziraphale’s back room or watching Crowley’s telly (Crowley introduces Aziraphale to a great many movies, and is taken aback by the angel’s overwhelming addiction to  _ Star Wars _ . “It’s light vs. dark!” he says, eyebrows lifted high.),  going places for fun instead of for work (just last week they’d met up in San Francisco, and after sunset Crowley had flicked his wrist and covered the Golden Gate Bridge with a rainbow of colored lights. “It’s not for the pretty decorations,” he insists. “Just think of the electricity that’s using up.” Aziraphale smiles knowingly, mutters “who’s the soft one now?” under his breath.).

Their dance brings them closer to each other every day.

Is it possible for the not quite end of the world to bring a beginning instead?

Back at the car, Aziraphale’s face lights up with sudden inspiration. “Do you think I could, ah, drive?”

Crowley’s face remains unreadable. The sunglasses help with this, of course, but he’s become formidable at schooling his features over the millenia. “Drive?” he repeats. “The Bentley?”

“You always make it look like so much fun. And it’s been such a lovely day…”

Thankful that the sunglasses hide his eyeroll, Crowley says, “Stop, stop. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“With your eyes all wide and impossible to say no to.”

Aziraphale takes a little hop-step toward the car, and then another. “Is that a yes?” He sounds rather like a small child asking if it’s time to cut his birthday cake.

“Slow down, angel. We’re going to find a nice empty car park for you to practice in, alright? I haven’t seen you drive once, and it’s been over a century since the automobile was invented.”

Crestfallen, Aziraphale mumbles, “I drove the motorbike.”

Crowley actually snorts. “That was Madame Tracy driving, and you know it. You just miracled it to go faster.”

Aziraphale looks at his toes. “I know.”

Crowley opens the passenger door and ushers Aziraphale into the car. “Now, come on, don’t pout. You can give it a go. Just, well, not here. Too many trees. And cars.” A duck splashes on the pond. “And ducks.” He shuts the door and saunters around to the other side.

. + . + . + .

He’s trying. He really is trying. But Aziraphale is not helping.

“What does this button do, then?”

“Headlamps. But it’s daylight.”

“Right. And this one?”

“That’s the radio. I think you should just focus on driving and let me deal with the music. Or better yet, we leave it off and minimize your distractions.”

“If you say so.”

“You know that’s the radio, Aziraphale. I’ve seen you work it before.”

“It looks different from over here!”

Crowley groans.

Aziraphale runs his hands over the steering wheel. “Which pedal makes us go again?”

Crowley goes the kind of still you don’t generally find in living things, and Aziraphale titters. “Just a joke.” He looks at his feet. “Mostly.”

Crowley groans.

But then he looks at Aziraphale again. He’s sitting contentedly in the driver’s seat, taking everything in, touching all the levers and buttons, resting his palms on the steering wheel. Crowley is reminded of Aziraphale in his bookshop, occasionally reaching out to touch the spine of a book as he walks by.

So Crowley just watches. He notices the tiny smile on Aziraphale’s face, the way his eyes light up when he holds the steering wheel. The way he peeks in the mirror, then glances at Crowley to see if he’s watching.

He makes no move to actually start the car.

After half an hour of sitting in the car--mostly in comfortable silence, but with a bit of intermittent chatter from Aziraphale: “What about this one?” “My they make these things complicated, don’t they.”--he turns to Crowley. His smile is somewhat embarrassed. But before he says anything Crowley says, “Alright then, angel?”

“Quite,” says Aziraphale, visibly relieved. “I thought it was about the driving, but really it was about, well--” He turns a bit pink.

Crowley’s heart quickens. But hope, he learned long ago, is too painful a thing. Still, his traitorous mouth says, “Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale looks at his lap. “You,” he says softly. “It was about you.”

The air in the car, pleasant and comfortable only moments before, suddenly feels stifling. Suffocating. Crowley doesn’t actually need to breathe, but that’s beside the point.

“For decades now I’ve watched you sit here, slicing through traffic, easing your way through the world. This car, it’s--well, it’s  _ you _ , Crowley. I can feel you in every switch and button, can feel your palms under mine on the steering wheel. I’m surprised your reflection doesn’t peer back at me from the mirror. And this seat, ah,” He blushes again, and Crowley thinks he might not go on, but then he looks up and says, “It’s almost like a hug, you fiend.”

Crowley has never heard such affection.

After taking a moment to be sure he can trust his voice, he says, “There are other ways to hug, you know. Better ways.”

“Oh?” says Aziraphale. Then, eyebrows raised, “Oh!”

Slow and tentative, Crowley stretches out his arm until his hand is resting, palm up, on Aziraphale’s knee. Aziraphale looks from the inviting palm to Crowley’s face, a question in his eyes. Crowley nods. Without looking away Aziraphale slips his hand into Crowley’s, fingers effortlessly lacing together.

Crowley wants to say something. He wants to tell his best friend that being together like this makes him feel whole in a way he’s been aching for since the dawn of creation. That the feel of their palms pressed together makes him yearn for more, to feel endless skin against his own with nothing getting in the way, especially not any of their angelic or demonic hangups.

But he can’t say any of that. Not yet. If he tries to speak right now he’ll just say something cool, or something that sounds like he’s trying desperately to be cool. Probably the latter.

So he just takes off his sunglasses. Hopefully Aziraphale can see.

He is rewarded with one of Aziraphale’s blinding smiles. It almost hurts his eyes. “I like when you do that,” Aziraphale says. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Good Omens has long been one of my favorite books, and the miniseries brought it to life in such a brilliant way that I just had to write about it! So here's my first (probably of many!) attempt. ;)


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